A professor at a community college in Connecticut has been placed on paid administrative leave after giving a Nazi salute during a meeting earlier this month, university officials said.

Charles Meyrick, an assistant professor of business and economics at Housatonic Community College, held his right arm in a Nazi salute for up to 10 minutes during a Nov. 2 meeting at Manchester Community College, where administrators from the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities were discussing ways to align curriculum across the state’s community colleges, the Hartford Courant reports.

“The reports of a faculty member’s outburst at a meeting last week, including the use of a Nazi salute, which required campus police to respond are appalling and unacceptable,” CSCU president Mark Ojakian said in a statement Friday.

Several staffers who attended the meeting contacted Ojakian to inform him how they felt “violated, unsafe and shocked” by Meyrick’s behavior, he said.

“This matter was immediately called to my attention and will be dealt with promptly and appropriately,” Ojakian said.

Meyrick, who did not return a message seeking comment, began shouting during the meeting after he apparently did not approve of the discussion. He eventually held up his arm in a Nazi salute for an extended period of time, several faculty members told the newspaper.

Meyrick’s displeasure was tied to a proposal to consolidate all of the state’s community colleges into a single statewide entity, staffers said.

Ojakian said Meyrick’s conduct “does not fit” with the community’s values and called on employees of the CSCU system to hold themselves to higher standards of civility.

Steve Ginsburg, director of the Anti-Defamation League in Connecticut, said he doesn’t automatically assume that someone is anti-Semitic if they raise their arm in a Nazi salute.

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“Frankly, when you think someone is being too authoritarian there are more effective ways of communicating that point, than using a ‘Heil Hitler’ or Nazi salute, which as we see can be deeply offensive and trivializes the horrors of the Holocaust,” Ginsburg told the newspaper.